"LILA DELANO"
A servant was sent with the note, and directed to admit no gentleman during the day or evening, without first bringing up his name.
While they were lingering at the tea-table, the door-bell rang, and Flora, with a look of alarm, started to run up stairs. "Wait a moment, till the name is brought in," said her friend. "If I admit the visitor, I should like to have you follow me to the parlor, and remain there ten or fifteen minutes. You can then go to your room, and when you are there, dear, be careful not to sing loud. Mr. Fitzgerald shall not take you from me; but if he were to find out you were here, it might give rise to talk that would be unpleasant."
The servant announced Mr. Willard Percival; and a few moments afterward Mrs. Delano introduced her protégée. Mr. Percival was too well bred to stare, but the handsome, foreign-looking little damsel evidently surprised him. He congratulated them both upon the relation between them, and said he need not wish the young lady happiness in her new home, for he believed Mrs. Delano always created an atmosphere of happiness around her. After a few moments of desultory conversation, Flora left the room. When she had gone, Mr. Percival remarked, "That is a very fascinating young person."
"I thought she would strike you agreeably," replied Mrs. Delano. "Her beauty and gracefulness attracted me the first time I saw her; and afterward I was still more taken by her extremely naïve manner. She has been brought up in seclusion as complete as Miranda's on the enchanted island; and there is no resisting the charm of her impulsive naturalness. But, if you please, I will now explain the note I sent to you this morning. I heard some months ago that you had joined the Anti-Slavery Society."
"And did you send for me hoping to convert me from the error of my ways?" inquired he, smiling.
"On the contrary, I sent for you to consult concerning a slave in whom
I am interested."
"You, Mrs. Delano!" he exclaimed, in a tone of great surprise.
"You may well think it strange," she replied, "knowing, as you do, how bitterly both my father and my husband were opposed to the anti-slavery agitation, and how entirely apart my own life has been from anything of that sort. But while I was at the South this winter, I heard of a case which greatly interested my feelings. A wealthy American merchant in New Orleans became strongly attached to a beautiful quadroon, who was both the daughter and the slave of a Spanish planter. Her father became involved in some pecuniary trouble, and sold his daughter to the American merchant, knowing that they were mutually attached. Her bondage was merely nominal, for the tie of affection remained constant between them as long as she lived; and he would have married her if such marriages had been legal in Louisiana. By some unaccountable carelessness, he neglected to manumit her. She left two handsome and accomplished daughters, who always supposed their mother to be a Spanish lady, and the wedded wife of their father. But he died insolvent, and, to their great dismay, they found themselves claimed as slaves under the Southern law, that 'the child follows the condition of the mother.' A Southern gentleman, who was in love with the eldest, married her privately, and smuggled them both away to Nassau. After a while he went there to meet them, having previously succeeded in buying them of the creditors. But his conduct toward the younger was so base, that she absconded. The question I wish to ask of you is, whether, if he should find her in the Free States, he could claim her as his slave, and have his claim allowed by law."
"Not if he sent them to Nassau," replied Mr. Percival. "British soil has the enviable distinction of making free whosoever touches it."